#166:Quintessence

Much rests upon the ability to determine your exact location, both at sea and on land, in a quick and reliable manner. If we had such an ability, we would be able to navigate more speedily and accurately, thus saving both time and supplies. Multiplied over hundreds or thousands of trade and military ships making many voyages a year, the economics involved are staggering. We would additionally avoid such accidents and disasters that have seen many ships lost at sea or damaged by reefs or similar obstacles. Indeed, the interest in finding a way to determine longitude (as opposed to the trivial issue of latitude) has united all spheres of Perplex City.

And all of that is why I reluctantly boarded the PRS Exsuscito today, with three of my most intricate and sophisticated counter-oscillating chronometers. I say reluctantly not out of a cowardly wish to stay off the waves, but because I do not agree with the nature of this expedition. The Academy has decided to take control of the city's Office of Longitude and in typical leck-pinching nature, arranged a single expedition in which the city's best horologists compete against each other to judge whose chronometer retains perplex City time most accurately.

The foolishness of this is beyond my ability to express. Besides the poor weather and the fact that the Exsuscito is an ageing ship hardly fit for the purpose, my chronometers have not yet been perfected. Why should I be blackmailed into this expedition when even I do not have confidence in my own instruments? Either this is folly beyond normal of what I expect from Academicians, or there is some other agenda here that I cannot perceive.